Work Out in Front of ‘Mirror,’ a Futuristic At-Home Gym

In front of Mirror, you can exercise with coaches and friends as well as compete with yourself. But the large LCD at-home gym doesn’t come cheap. Mirror starts at $1,500.

Mirror is a big LCD panel that mounts to the wall or tilts against a stand. The at-home fitness technology comes with speakers, a camera, and a microphone for two-way communication.

An accompanying Mirror iOS app activates the whole system so users can follow along with live, on-demand, equipment-free workouts ranging from cardio and strength to yoga and boxing.

The brand claims there are over 50 new live classes per week. There’s also a workout library to choose whatever you want, whenever you want. But the content costs more: $40 per month.

At-Home Convenience and Right-Sized Fitness Content

Mirror is the brainchild of former professional ballerina Brynn Putnam. She also founded Refine Method, a chain of boutique fitness studios in New York.

After a decade in the fitness world and running, Putnam, a crazed entrepreneur and mom, could no longer find time to travel to a gym. She tried in-home workouts but got frustrated with clunky equipment and fitness content that was too stagnant on TV or too tiny to see on a mobile phone.

With Mirror, her goal was to couple at-home convenience with interactive content — even personal trainers, which will be added to the Mirror system soon.

The Mirror in-home fitness tool may just be fulfilling a very real need.

Putnam said the response to Mirror’s launch surpassed her expectations. The company won’t share specific numbers, but she confirmed that within the first month, Mirror technology was sold to users in more than 30 states.

Putnam said people are already experimenting with what they can do with the Mirror. Perhaps that’s because you don’t care what you look like in your own home when you’re dripping with sweat.

“We’re seeing people push their boundaries with new workouts they may not have been comfortable with before,” she said of early customer feedback.

Mirror Fitness: Worth the Cost?

Pushing boundaries when working out is great. But does the $1,500 price tag for a workout Mirror on the wall, plus monthly membership fees, also push a financial boundary?

Maybe not. Putnam made a comparison for potential buyers. At-home fitness now makes up the largest slice of America’s $25 billion fitness industry. However, the boutique fitness studio industry is by far the fastest-growing segment.

“This means that people are craving higher-quality instruction and experience, but convenience is critical,” she said.

A standard studio gym class averages $34. A monthly membership at luxury fitness club Equinox, for example, starts at about $200 per month. When you look at it like that, Mirror is cheaper. (Plus there’s a payment plan starting at $164 per month.)

“For the monthly cost of a single boutique workout, you can access unlimited live and on-demand classes from the privacy of your own home,” said Putnam, citing other gym inconveniences like parking and waitlists for popular classes.

“Also, in many cases, multiple users in a household will be using the Mirror, in which case there are even greater savings.”

Associate editor Julie Kailus has spent a career covering people, places, and products in the outdoor industry. Julie can be found testing the latest and greatest in her favorite activities — trail running, mountain biking, swimming, snowboarding, and the underrated endurance sport of chasing two sons around the mountains.